Toddler Tudors
by Lady Eleanor Boleyn
Summary: Because not even the future Kings and Queens of England can always know that they are Princes and Princesses. A series of humorous shorts detailing times when our favourite monarchs acted out as toddlers.
1. Henry

"NO! NO! NO USE!" The toddler's screams rang through the ornate rooms. Mistress Luke sighed, then knelt down before the sobbing Prince.

"Very well, Your Highness. You don't have to learn to use the chamber pot. But then you'll have to carry on wearing napkins like Princess Elizabeth."

Prince Henry stilled, then looked up at Mistress Luke, injured. "No! I no baby like Lisbet."

"No. But if you won't learn to use the chamber-pot, then I'm afraid you have no choice. Come on."

Mistress Luke picked up the two and a half year old Prince and laid him on his back, lifting his legs high with one hand.

Henry struggled and kicked, roaring his displeasure, but Mistress Luke was still stronger, for all he was a vigorous boy. He had no choice but to let her pin the cloth around his legs.

But that didn't mean he had to keep it on. The second she was done and let him up, he roared, "Hurts! Hurts!" and used all his strength to tear it off, flinging it to the floor angrily and stamping upon it.

"Prince Henry!" Mistress Luke admonished, but he paid her no heed, running away before she could grab hold of him.

"Let him go, Anne," Joan Guildford, Princess Margaret's governess, advised. "He'll learn as soon as he feels the liquid running down his legs. Goodness knows Margaret did."

"Are you sure?"Anne asked, but since she knew she had little or no chance of catching her charge when he was in this mood, she eventually gave in, hoping against hope that Henry wouldn't decide he needed to go all too soon.

Unfortunately for her, Henry, stubborn as a mule, had withheld his desires to empty his bladder for the entirety of the morning until Mistress Luke had given in and let him be without a napkin around his legs. Within moments, there was a shriek from where he and Princess Margaret were playing.

"Harry, no, that's naughty!" Four year old Princess Margaret chided her younger brother, who stood in a large, rapidly spreading, puddle of urine, laughing his head off.

Anne gasped and moved towards them, but Princess Margaret was faster. Even if her brother had been naughty, it was still the two of them against the attendants. Always. Especially since Lisbet had been born and no one had paid them their full share of attention. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him after her and shut them both in the next room before Anne could catch them.

Groaning, Anne called another, lower, nursemaid to mop up the puddle and then went to try to coax the Prince and Princess out of their hiding place.

"Come, Your Highnesses. Please. You won't get into trouble. Just come on out. I have sweetmeats," she called temptingly.

"No," Margaret called back, "You'll treat Harry like a baby. And he's not a baby. He's my brother."

"I'm not denying that. But you don't want him to spoil your things by emptying his bladder on them, do you?"

"No, but he won't. He's been now, haven't you, Harry?"

There was silence behind the door, and then Princess Margaret called back, "He's promised not to. Now go away."

Anne hated the note of arrogance in the four year old's voice, but she had no choice but to agree. "As you wish, Your Highness."

Not half an hour later, however, Princess Margaret came sprinting out of the room herself, holding her nose.

"Harry pooing!" she explained nasally.

Anne sprang up. "Oh no!"

Racing into the next room, she was just in time to see Prince Henry rising from a squat, his young face visibly relieved. The smell drifting up from below him was unmistakeable.

"No. Prince Henry, no!" Anne swept him up and slapped him lightly, "Bad boy! Bad!"

"Harry bad!" he chuckled cheerfully.

"Yes, very bad, Your Highness. You know what that means, don't you? You'll have to go back into napkins until you can learn to use the chamber pot properly."

Prince Henry's face darkened and he instantly started fighting her, "No! NO! I no baby! I no baby!"

Normally, tears and temper won him his way in the end, but this time Anne was adamant. Striding back into the other room, she immediately forced him on to the floor and pinned the napkin back on his lower half. And when he tried to tear it off again, she slapped his hands away.

"No. Take it off and you'll be in bed with no supper."

Henry howled furiously, but no matter how many times he screamed it, "Hurts! Hurts! Take off, take off!" no one listened. At last, he had no choice but to let himself be distracted by the wooden soldiers that were scattered about the floor.


	2. Mary 1519

"Come, Princess, please. You must eat," Lady Bryan pressed the spoon to Mary's lips, hoping to make her open her mouth, even if only wide enough to slip this morsel of fish in. But Mary shook her head, turning her clamped lips away stubbornly, "No like fish. No eat," she retorted.

"There is nothing else, Princess. It's Lent, you're not allowed meat. Come, just a few bites. For Mama and Papa."

"No. No like fish." Mary insisted, still refusing to open her mouth. As Lady Bryan stood up, intending to use her height to her advantage and gently insist Mary eat the fish, Mary's small slippered foot flew out, catching her on the knee.

Lady Bryan jumped backward, "Ow! That wasn't nice, Princess! We don't kick, do we? So what do you say?"

Little Mary drew herself up. "I not sorry. I not eat fish and I not sorry for kick!"

"Your Highness! What would Papa say if he knew you were being naughty?"

"Papa not know. He not make me eat fish!"

The surety in the three year old's voice was unmistakeable. Lady Bryan opened her mouth to protest...only to be cut off by the King's jovial voice, "Well, I'm sure Lady Bryan won't mind if I disturb the Princess at dinner tonight, will she?"

Startled at the King's sudden appearance, Lady Bryan scrambled down into a curtsy, "S—Sire," she managed at last. Mary took advantage of her distraction to leap up and run to her Papa.

"Papa. No make me eat fish, please?" She begged him, big blue eyes peeping up at him. Henry swept her up to his eye-line, making her giggle, "What's that, Mary, my pearl?"

"Lady Bryan wants me to eat fish, but I don't like fish, Papa. Please don't make me eat it."

Margaret Bryan groaned. The little vixen had deliberately asked him in her best speech. She never spoke to her in a manner as grown up as this! It was all 'No like' and 'No want'. The King would never be able to resist her now, especially not with that cocked head of hers peering at him so earnestly.

Sure enough, the King glanced at her, then at his little daughter, "Have you eaten everything else?"

"Yes, Papa. Tudor honour."

"Then I don't see why you shouldn't be let off the fish this once. Come on, we'll see if Mama wants to call for some music, shall we?"

Mary laughed and nodded, clapping happily as the King swept her out of her rooms in his arms, leaving an exasperated Lady Bryan behind. Mary would never learn to eat everything she was given if the King kept indulging her like this!


	3. Mary 1498

_AN: Decided to create an OC for this one – just because the idea seemed too good to resist. King Henry and Queen Elizabeth now have eight children, with the eighth being Prince Francis, born in 1498, two years after Princess Mary. I'll leave his eventual fate to your imagination._

"Fi'ppa? Fi'ppa?"

Philippa Baynton, one of the maids in the royal nursery at Eltham, looked down at the two year old Princess Mary, who was tugging slightly on her skirts.

"Yes, Princess?" she asked gently. Whatever the Princess wanted to ask her, she wasn't entirely relaxed about it, a fact that was only highlighted when she beckoned Philippa to bend to her level so she could whisper in her ear.

"New, please."

Had Philippa not served the Princess Mary since she was a baby and had the little girl not had one hand between her legs, that cryptic request would have meant absolutely nothing to Philippa. As it was, however, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Scooping the toddler Princess into her arms, she carried her into the next room for some privacy and began to unpin the bands of cloth wound around her bottom and upper legs...only to discover that they were absolutely stone dry. And spotless. There was not the slightest need for Mary to be changed yet.

With a laugh, Philippa began to pin the child's napkin back on, "You don't need changing yet, Princess. You're still completely clean and dry. I'll just put this back on and then you can run off and play, hmm?"

To her shock, Mary began to scream and kick, lashing out with her little feet as she thrashed around on her back.

"No! No! I wet! I wet! I need new! I need new! I WET!"

"Your Highness..."

"I WET!"

That last scream was the loudest Philippa had ever heard any child give – and considering she'd served in Prince Henry's household a few years earlier, that was saying something. A second later, some other knowledge crashed over her, leaving her ice cold. It was the hour of Prince Francis's morning nap. If Mary's furious screams disturbed him – and she couldn't see how they could fail to, with how loud they were – she would be in serious trouble with Lady Guildford.

She held up her hands, "All right! All right! You shall have a new napkin, Princess. Just hush, please, hush."

And hush Mary did. She was still red-faced, but being given her own way ensured a beaming smile was plastered all over the toddler's chubby cheeks, and the second Philippa had pinned the new napkin on her, she skipped out into the other room without a care in the world.

Philippa followed gratefully, hoping that would be the end of it.

It wasn't, of course. Lady Guildford came up to her not five minutes later.

"What was all the noise about? I had to start all over again with putting Prince Francis down; it scared him stiff."

"I'm sorry," Philippa ducked her head, shame-faced. "Princess Mary insisted on having a new napkin put on."

"What? Again? I only changed her an hour ago."

"That's the thing. She was completely dry and clean, yet when I tried to persuade her she didn't need one, she threw the most colossal fit. I simply couldn't understand it. As if we don't have enough with Prince Francis's diarrhea and sensitive skin."

Still looking at the floor, Philippa only caught the older woman's gasp, not her expression.

"What is it, Lady Guildford?"

"That's it, Philippa. You've got it! Princess Mary's jealous."

"Jealous?" Philippa couldn't help but raise her head at that.

"Yes. She's jealous because we're changing Prince Francis so much. She doesn't realise he's ill; she just sees the attention we're paying him and wants some too."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Ah. You leave that one with me, Philippa. I'll deal with it."

Lady Guildford put her hand on Philippa's shoulder briefly, then walked away.

An hour later, when Princess Mary started squirming and rubbing between her legs again, they exchanged glances.

Lady Guildford went over to Princess Mary, while Philippa took the just-waking Prince Francis into her arms and soothed him, keeping him as calm as she could while waiting for the inevitable explosion.

"No, Gilly! I dirty! I dirty! I want new! I want! I dirty! DIRTY!"


End file.
